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Drs. Oz and Roizen: Parasites as health helpers; antibiotics overload

updated Monday, October 14, 2013 - 5:04pm

I have multiple sclerosis, and I heard that parasites can help fight autoimmune diseases like MS, as well as ulcerative colitis and psoriasis. I thought parasites caused disease? Can you explain?

— Joey G., Skokie, Ill.

Many parasites do cause trouble and can trigger blindness, muscle problems and chronic nutritional deficiencies. But one type of intestinal parasite that is rarely found in North America — helminthes — is being studied in hopes that it will aid in the development of new immune-system-regulating drugs. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration has granted pig whipworm (Trichuris suis) the status of Investigational New Drug. One company has taken the protein that this parasite produces into Phase II clinical trials for fighting Crohn’s disease.

The hygiene hypothesis is the reason investigators are heading down this path.

This hypothesis credits our runaway problem with autoimmune diseases to our scrubbed-up and sanitized Western world. It seems that when your immune system doesn’t have enough work to do, after a slight provocation — possibly from a virus — it goes out of whack and mistakenly attacks your own healthy cells. Autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes and MS are a lot less common in developing countries where people’s immune systems have to battle parasites, bacteria and viruses all the time. So today, scientists are trying to isolate parasite proteins that may be able to help your immune system identify and attack only invading alien cells and not cells that are your own.

That’s good news for you and the 20 million or more folks in North American with one (or more) of the 80 autoimmune diseases. But don’t try this at home; we don’t know what works and what is harmful.

Antibiotics saved my life when I had pneumonia as a kid and not too long ago when I had cellulitis. Now I hear antibiotic resistance is threatening to put us back into to the pre-antibiotic era. How’s that possible?

— Mattie K., Westfield, N.J.

Antibiotics are one of the most life-changing medical innovations of the past 100 years. These days, we take their benefits for granted. (Most people in North America aren’t even aware that their great-grandparents could have died from something as simple as a puncture wound, a sore throat, pneumonia or even a toothache.) The problem is that bacteria are adaptable, and many have mutated so that they are now superbugs that do not succumb to the antibiotics we possess.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced that 2 million people a year fall ill from drug-resistant organisms, and 23,000 of them die! Among the most worrisome drug-resistant bacteria are salmonella, E-coli, Y-pestis, and shigella (they’re enterobacteriaceae); C. difficile, which triggers potentially lethal diarrhea; and gonorrhea.

What can you do to help stem the tide of resistant bacteria? If you’re prescribed an antibiotic, ask why: One study found 25 percent of prescriptions (mostly for broad-spectrum antibiotics) are for a condition that the medication cannot treat!

That’s a sure route for building up resistant bacteria! And don’t pressure your doctor for an antibiotic when it won’t help. Among the conditions most commonly treated with antibiotics when they are in fact caused by viruses and can’t be K.O.’d by the meds: colds, flu, most coughs and bronchitis, sore throats (except for strep) and some ear infections.

When you do take antibiotics make sure to take the full dose as directed. In addition, don’t use antibacterial soaps or antibacterial disinfectants.

They’re no more effective at killing germs than soap or alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

Worse, research indicates that overuse of antibacterial soaps or disinfectants leads to resistant bacteria.

Thanks for asking about this important issue; researchers are working hard to find solutions. Some may be as simple as giving antibiotics by injection instead of orally, and others involve innovative genetic-based approaches to killing off bacteria, or even fecal transplants, which we wrote about in this column several months ago.

• • •

KICKING THE HABIT

Remember those hard-hitting anti-smoking commercials that aired on TV last spring? There was Terrie, a former smoker who developed oral and throat cancer, donning her wig and artificial voice box, and Brandon, who lost both legs below the knees and several fingers, putting on his prosthetic legs.

Now, a new report’s tallied this graphic campaign’s successes: An estimated 100,000 Americans quit for good, and a whopping 1.6 million smokers were inspired to try.

This $54 million blitz by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention works out to spending $540 per successful quitter, an investment that’ll save every taxpayer a bundle. Right now, smoking costs the U.S. $96 billion a year in public and private health-care costs and another $97 million in lost productivity on the job. A $6 pack of cigarettes carries with it $35 in health costs. We estimate that every quitter ultimately saves taxpayers $2,000 a year in public health and disability expenses.

A new round of ads in the CDC’s Tips from Former Smokers campaign is set to air next spring.

But don’t wait until then to kick your habit. Not when another new smoking report reveals just how fast the health benefits roll in.

In a study that looked at the heart health of 13,372 current, former and non-smokers, researchers from Dr. Oz’s New York-Presbyterian Hospital found a quitter’s odds for a heart attack or fatal heart disease drops to that of a nonsmoker within two years. Considering that smoking is behind one in three heart-disease deaths in North America, that’s powerful motivation for saying “no thanks,” even if you’ve tried unsuccessfully to kick this habit in the past.

The fact is, it takes an average of six quit attempts to get it done. And going cold turkey is only a winning strategy for 2 percent to 5 percent of smokers. Swapping your cigarettes for nicotine patches, sprays or gum only helps 5 percent to 10 percent.

But adding group support rockets the success rate up to 25 percent to 50 percent. (You can boost your odds for success to 80 percent by adding daily coaching; Dr. Mike sees the power of that in his program at the Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Center.) Here are some other effective strategies:

Step 1: Set a quit date a month from today. Nope, you’re not gonna swear off cigarettes or cigars for the first 30 days. Use this month to establish a healthy new behavior: walking. Stroll for a half-hour every day, rain or shine, on lazy Saturdays and on your busiest workday. During this prep period, see your doctor and ask about prescriptions for the nicotine patch and for the anti-crave drug bupropion. Get them both filled. And find a support person you can report to daily about your progress — now with walking, and later with quitting, too.

Step 2: Two days before your quit date, start taking the bupropion as directed. Keep on walking and checking in with your support person.

Step 3: On your quit date, toss all tobacco products and accessories (lighters, ashtrays) and attach your nicotine patch as directed by your doctor. Keep walking and taking your anti-crave drug (ask your doctor about the best dose); keep talking to your support person. Days three, four and five will be your toughest, but clear skies are ahead. Make it to day seven, you’re well on your way to staying nicotine-free for good. You’ll be able to reduce your nicotine patch dose after two months, and be finished with patches and pills after six.

Step 4: And keep on walking. The average former smoker gains 10 to 13 pounds in his or her first smoke-free year, most of it in the first three months. But this won’t be you if you keep putting one foot in front of the other. Plenty of people in Dr. Mike’s program lose a few pounds while shaking off tobacco. Now that’s a good deal!